Viral 'UFO' video shows ordinary contrail: Expert

By

Lachlan Williams

A video that purports to show an unidentified comet-like object jettisoning part of itself in another direction is actually an ordinary condensation trail, a physics and astronomy expert has told ninemsn.

The video, which captured the imagination of internet users after it shot to the front page of social website reddit, shows what the uploader says is a UFO.

"I was driving home after work when this UFO or whatever you call it caught my eye. I pulled over in front of somebody's house to film it. I would have got a better shot but I didn't want to jump these peoples fence," writes YouTuber Ken Roberts, whose video has been watched 200,000 times.

"The orb thing flew straight up into the sky and disappeared," he wrote.

But Monash University's Dr Michael Brown, who lectures in physics and astronomy, told ninemsn that the video shows a slow-moving contrail left by an aircraft.

"The video definitely shows a short contrail from a high-flying plane," he said. "It is moving too fast to be a comet and too slow to be a meteor."

"The 'orb' somewhat (but not entirely) resembles a satellite, that may have coincidentally passed above the plane," Dr Brown said.

"But I also wonder if the 'orb' was faked. It has very constant brightness and moves very smoothly. It is relatively easy to fake a small out-of-focus blob.

"The ability to put fake things into shaky amateur video is nicely illustrated by this YouTube video filmed at Frankfurt airport.

"Obviously a blurry spot would be trivial compared to this."

Dr Brown also noted that the uploader had only posted one other video, which showed ordinary seagulls, two hours before he posted the "UFO".

"He supposedly recorded a UFO video during the evening, coincidently same day he created a YouTube account, but he first liked things and uploaded a video of seagulls, and only hours later uploaded his video of a crashing UFO."

While Dr Brown did concede that seagulls can be mesmerising in themselves, he said the timeline was another sign that the video was a hoax.

"If you saw a crashing UFO, wouldn’t you upload it ASAP?" he asked.

Ninemsn has contacted the uploader for comment, but he did not reply before publication.